Search Catalog

92 letters, 278 manuscript pages, 58 envelopes, dated 1900-1972, with the bulk of the letters from the 1910s-1940s were written to Marie R. Wing and her family. There is also some minor ephemeral material.

Francis Joseph Wing (1850-1918) was a
United States federal judge. Born in North Bloomfield, Ohio, Wing was educated
at Phillips Academy, and Harvard University. He read law with Caleb Blodgett at
Boston, Judge Buckingham of Newark, and Edward O. Fitch of Ashtabula, Ohio. He
was admitted to the bar in 1874 and was in private practice in Cleveland, Ohio
from 1874 to 1899. He became an assistant United States Attorney of the
Northern District of Ohio from 1880 to 1881. He was a judge on the Court of
Common Pleas from 1899 to 1901. On January 21, 1901, Wing was nominated by
President William McKinley to a new seat on the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Ohio. He was confirmed by the United States Senate
on January 23, 1901, and received his commission the same day. Wing served in
that capacity until his resignation, on February 1, 1905. He then returned to
private practice in Ohio until his death, in 1918, in Cleveland. Wing married
Mary Brackett Remington (1854-1920) of Cleveland September 25, 1878. They had
three daughters: Virginia Remington, Marie Remington, and Stephanie Remington.

Marie Remington Wing was a successful
lawyer, feminist, and social reformer. She was born on 5 November 1885 in
Cleveland to federal judge Francis J. Wing and Mary Brackett Remington. She
prepared for college at Miss Mittleberger's School for Young Ladies, and
attended Bryn Mawr College until her father's financial reverses forced her to
return to Cleveland, where she began working with the YWCA as both industrial
and financial secretary. She also served as its general secretary in New York
and sat on the board of trustees.

The school that Marie attended,
"Miss Mittleberger's School" (c1877-1908), was one of Cleveland's
most prominent schools for young women. The school had its beginnings in Miss
Augusta Mittleberger's home, where she began conducting private classes for
young women. With the death of her father in 1877, Miss Mittleberger moved to larger
quarters. In 1881 she was offered a house owned by John D. Rockefeller for her
school. Miss Mittleberger's school achieved a national reputation and boarded
students enrolled from other areas of Ohio and nearby states, including the
daughters of presidents Hayes and Garfield.

Marie R. Wing came from a
distinguished Cleveland family, from which she drew her enthusiasm and her
sense of social commitment. George Clary Wing (1848-1929), Marie's uncle, was
an author and Harvard-educated attorney who worked in several United States
government departments before returning to Cleveland in 1884 to join his
brother's law practice. This brother was Francis Joseph Wing (1850-1918),
Marie's father and a judge in the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas. He
later became a judge in the United States District Court for Northern Ohio, but
resigned in 1905.

Marie's older sister, Virginia
Remington Wing (1881-1951), was, like Marie, a social activist. She began her
career with the Red Cross, serving in both Washington and St. Louis. In 1923,
she came to Cleveland in order to take a position as the executive secretary of
both the Cleveland Anti-Tuberculosis League and of the Cleveland Health
Council's Health Education Department. In 1929 and 1933 she added to her
responsibilities the secretary-ships of the Brush Foundation and the Sight
Saving Council.

Marie Wing's niece Stephanie Ralph
(1914-1969) was a school psychologist whose research was published in
nationally-prominent journals, and whose husband Paul Ralph was even better
known in the academic world. In 1948, he won an award for his photographs of
microscopic organisms.

In 1922 Marie R. Wing left the YWCA
and enrolled in the Cleveland Law School, which her father had helped found.
She was one of the first two females elected to Cleveland's City Council and
served for 2 terms (1923, 1925), having previously sat on the charter review
instituting the city manager system in Cleveland. While a member of council,
Wing worked to establish a women's bureau in the police department. She was
admitted to the Ohio bar in 1926. Wing served on the executive board of the
Cleveland Federation of Women's Clubs, and as executive secretary of the
Consumers League of Ohio where she worked to pass legislation protecting women
and children in industry and providing a minimum wage. In 1934 Wing was
appointed to the Women's Advisory Committee of the Cleveland Regional Labor
Board, heading a special works program committee appointed by the Cuyahoga County
Relief Commission. She was the first regional attorney for the Cleveland Social
Security office from 1937-53, afterwards opening a private law practice.

In 1956, Wing, unmarried and living
with her longtime partner, retired to live in Mentor, Ohio, where she and her partner
were involved in the founding of organizations such as the Community Action
Program of Lake County, the Fine Arts Association, the Lake County Committee on
Aging, and the Legal Services Association of Lake County.

Marie's
partner, Dorothy Smith (1892-1976), was a prominent social worker born in
Springfield, Missouri. She attended Vassar College, and entered social work
upon her graduation in 1914, assuming a position with the YWCA in Pawtucket,
R.I. Named general secretary of the Pawtucket YWCA in 1916; she established
vocational programs in nursing and child care, placing her organization in the
forefront of the local war effort. Smith came to Cleveland in 1921, a year
later becoming general secretary of the Cleveland Young Women's Christian
Association. Under her guidance, the YWCA built a new headquarters, established
a program to aid senior citizens, added recreation programs, and strongly
supported Prohibition. Smith resigned on the eve of the Depression to enter the
insurance business for 13 years, while also acting as an advisor to many
programs assisting people crippled by the Depression. World War II and the
resulting shortage of skilled administrators brought her back to social work.
In 1943 she became an adult worker at East End Neighborhood House becoming
director in 1944, instituting volunteer programs allowing the settlement to cut
its administrative costs by 40% and constructing a new recreation building in
1947. Smith resigned in 1955 but continued serving as an advisor for 10 more
years. During this period she also became active with the Mentor Community
Fund, serving on its board of trustees from 1957-64. Smith spent her last 10
years in quiet retirement in Mentor with her longtime partner Marie R. Wing.

Marie Remington Wing out lived her
partner Dorothy who died in 1976. Marie died on 27 December 1982 and was buried
in her family's plot at Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland.

Besides the Wing family related
material, this collection also includes a group of 13 letters (44 mss pp.)
dated 1929-1930.A couple of them have
envelopes and they are addressed to one William Lysiak, of Cleveland, Ohio, He
is an immigrant from Poland whose native language is Ukrainian. He came to
America about the year 1913. He was born about 1897 and worked as a laborer.
The letters are all written in what appears to be Ukrainian and are written by
various individuals from Akron and Cleveland, Ohio; Montreal, Canada, Port
Jervis, NY; Detroit, MI; and elsewhere. We have not been able to establish a
relationship of these letters to the Remington/Wing family material, but we
leave them with the collection, since they came with the collection, it is
possible they may relate in some way to Wing’s reform and social work, but our
Ukrainian is non-existent.